I look forward to March Madness every year in hopes of seeing my Kansas Jayhawks bring home a championship. This year we got a completely different kind of madness and we all have to find a way to survive and advance in the tournament of life.

Most important of all, take care of yourselves and those around you. Practice social distancing, wash your hands and do what you can to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Please be careful about what you share on social media as there are many bogus posts going around. If you have not verified it is accurate, just don’t share it.

Beyond your personal health, I’m sure many of you are just as worried about the financial health of your business or your family. Numerous adjustments may need to happen as not all jobs can be performed remotely. If at all possible, please continue to support other small businesses. We have to all work together to survive.

I’m sure I’ll have to make some changes, but I’ve tried to maintain my spending both personally and professionally. Numerous businesses have been there for me in good times and I want to do my part to help them through the bad times.

If you can’t help financially, can you find other ways to help? I was approached by my friends at JC Printing to very quickly design a sign for them. We’re talking they needed the final design in 30 minutes after they contacted me! The signs would be freely distributed to local restaurants so their customers knew food could be ordered and picked up curbside. Then Katie Leiler Consulting pushed out their offer via various social media platforms. Below is the Facebook post and you’ll see some of the places displaying the sign in the comments.

Are there projects you can do now to help your business down the road? Can you take an online course? How about creating a new product? We all talk about something we’re going to do when we have more time. Now is that time!

Yes, Unleashed will survive though things will be tight in the short term. Of course we’d still love to help you build or makeover a Web site. Get your online presence in order as this could be the main way customers interact with you in the short term.

Again, take care of yourselves!

Kelly Sikkema